I was born and spent the first years of my life in Nottingham. I then read English at university and completed a post-graduate teaching course. My teaching career included schools in Milton Keynes, Leeds and, for twenty three years, in Carlisle at Austin Friars St Monica's School after my family moved to Cumbria in 1986. I have written novels and short stories throughout my life though 'Raineland' is my first published work. I am deeply grateful to the editorial team at Austin Macauley Publishers for seeing in my work the qualities that have led to its publication.

In recent interviews with Nigel Peacock (Eden Radio) and Dan Beale (Lakeland Radio) I was asked about the origins of my novel and about the kind of audience who might like it. Ideas are of course very precious. I have read many tales ( by, for example, Walter Scott and Conan-Doyle) which feature old country houses. Such places may have, like Raineland, stories and secrets associated with them. It has surprised some to know that the first version of this novel was completed in the 1980s. Though I have looked to make improvements since then, I made little change to the main characters and their experiences. I certainly gave more time to some of the minor figures, but my own 'favourite' scenes, the episodes I most wanted to write, have changed very little. Some of these episodes are near the end of my work where we see more of the two children and learn at last what had happened in that Civil War adventure of long ago.

I hope, as I am sure all writers do, that my readers will find something distinctive in my work. I try in my writing to produce something worth reading several times, something readers will recommend to others. Many people enjoy a good story and I hope my own tale is exactly that.

Other details can be found on the website of Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd. I am also very grateful to them for nominating my novel to be short-listed for the Costa Book Awards later this year.